Writing, authors, interviews, writing tips, and writing prompts from the West Coast of the USA.

Welcome to West Coast Writers Blog wherever you're from!

Creative writing thoughts and schemes from a book author who enjoys both fiction and nonfiction, with a little poetry thrown in.Thoughts about writing a book, interviews with book authors and other writers, writing prompts, and thoughts about the writing life crop up here.In January, I participate in a River of Small Stones project, and in February, I run Alphabetaphilia on this site.See the pdf below for some of the great sentences produced in this year’s Alphabetaphilia. I'd love to hear your thoughts, and you can post as "anonymous" if you like, no need to register. I moderate comments, but I'm usually fast in posting what you've commented. I'm the author of memoir Breaking Through the Spiral Ceiling, available through Amazon.com. View a free sample below the postings on this blog.

Writing Prompts

MEANING. Think of three insights you've had from people close to you, relatives or not. Choose your favorite one of the three, and write the first two paragraphs of a story based upon it. Someday, finish the story.

DORMANT VOLCANO. There are many places where volcanos are quiet, brooding. Now they are dormant but someday they can awaken and blow magma and ash into the sky. I remember Mt. St. Helens went from a quiet, snow-capped mountain to an inferno in about 24 hours or so. Write about someone who is caught in the transition.

HOLE IN THE CLOUDS. My husband's blog talks about his sensing a hole in the clouds, here: http://michael-walkingwiththespirit.blogspot.com/2012/02/hole-in-sky.html , That made me think about times when the clouds did something that transfixed me. Think about a time the clouds were amazing. Describe the clouds and also the scene, where you were, with whom, any conversation.

STRAWBERRIES. A friend put a great picture of a single strawberry on her blog. It reminded me of Gayle Brandeis's exercise where she passed out berries, one each, and asked us to do a sensory exploration of our berry. It was delicious in so many ways, the little dimpled seeds, glossy red flesh, fresh berry scent, soft silky feel, and taste---yum. Try that yourself. It's better even than it sounds. Then write about all the sensory overload.

TASTE. Starting with brushing your teeth, try to describe each thing you taste for a half an hour in words as exact as possible. Imagine you are obsessive about taste, and don't let your awardeness slip off the tip of the tongue.

Small Stones Badge

Nanowrimo

Monday, December 19, 2011

This past semester, I had a lovely class from poet/novelist Marilyn Chin. It's the first class in my MFA program from a woman, and she reveled in being a woman! I really enjoyed the massive reading list, which she told us was partly for our future reference. It's fine with me that we couldn't really define what's a prose poem, what's a flash fiction. We even found out that certain pieces are celebrated and have won awards in both categories.

I was more interested in the poetry half, since it was so different from the kind of writing we practice in the fiction workshops. Intense images, sensory to the max, steeped in layers of meaning, and highly condensed prose with every word carrying a double dip of meaning, those concepts go with prose poems to me. I think of one centering about an image of a small basket of dead bees, covered over with a thin layer of red rose petals. Or, a bag of dried human ears, dumped out on the dining room table. Or a full moon noosed on a black cord, hanging over a house. But not all prose poems have an indelible image, an appeal to senses, power-packed verbiage where every word must have resulted from intense debate in the author's mind. Some capture a scene with minimal poetic devices, with spare prose with simple beauty or starkness. I might call them flash fiction, but perhaps there is not enough story line to make them count as stories. The dividing line is assuredly murky and indistinct. Our collections of each genre only made it less obvious that the two are distinct, while enticing us to write our way into the mystery.

About Me

A professor of molecular biology turned creative writer, Laura writes short fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for magazines, anthologies, and newspapers, has a memoir, Breaking Through the Spiral Ceiling, published in 2011, and has two novels and a biography of Two Women of the RNA World in progress. She received a Certificate in Creative Writing with Distinction in June, 2009 from UCLA and is halfway through the MFA in fiction at SDSU.